


an empty room

by quietest_one



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, NHL Draft Combine 2009, Pre-Canon, T minus 14 days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:17:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5477903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietest_one/pseuds/quietest_one
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Combine is a mad rush of a long weekend, painfully sober, gloriously exhausting. Kent is on the road to reaching his dreams, and he's taking Jack along for the ride. (Or, two boys exchange handjobs around the back of a gym. Whichever you prefer.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	an empty room

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pinkerton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinkerton/gifts).



> Writer's block has been kicking me in the teeth, and this fic fought me every step of the way, which is why it's rushed, unbeta'd and nearly late - I'm so sorry :((  
> Written for this year's Swawesome Santa, for Pinkerton, who requested Parse with a happy ending. I hope this is happy enough. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and happy Christmas <3
> 
> For people not au fait with the mysteries of the NHL, the scouting combine takes place a couple of weeks before the entry draft, in the summer. It is a combination of horrible fitness tests and interviews, and after it, the prospects are given their final official pre-draft rankings.

The gym is cloying and hideously hot.

The prospects have been shepherded around the center all weekend by imperious people in smart suits with clipboards, scrutinised and analysed in every possible way. There are ten of them in the current group, all from the Q, people he knows or knows of, has played against on and off for years, including him and Jack.

The VO2 max bike test is the last one of their circuit, through some appalling piece of terrible planning. They’re already drained and aching, too tired to continue the casual chirping they’ve been keeping up for the past three days.

“Alright, Parson,” the guy says. He’s got a clipboard and is holding out the O2 monitor. “You’re up.”

Kent climbs onto the bike with a cocky wink at the other prospects. Some of them jeer at him, but most of them are too nervous or too wiped to respond. Jack, looking lean and lovely in a sweaty grey marl t-shirt that Kent has stolen from him at least twice, rolls his eyes.

“Watch and learn, kids,” Kent says.

He stuffs the disgusting plastic nozzle into his mouth. On a less critical occasion, he would be tempted to make a joke about exactly how much he can fit in his mouth – something that would make Jack squirm and blush and smile that tiny smile at the corner of his mouth that says ‘why do I even like you’ – but now is really not the time.

This is _hockey_. This is one of the most important days of his life.

This is – if he’s very very lucky – the day he proves to the world that he’s as good as any of the bigger, richer kids. As good as Jack.

The test starts easy and rapidly becomes _not_ easy. He has to sustain the pace at maximum output, which is pretty fucking awful. Within minutes his legs are screaming at him, as are his lungs. He’s aiming for at least twelve minutes – Jack made it to thirteen and a half, because he has monster thighs and the lung capacity of someone who has never once been enticed into smoking weed – but Kent made the rookie error of not checking his start time. He’ll go for as long as he can stand, then.

“Oof,” he says, when he’s done – as soon as he has stripped the nozzle from his mouth. Every part of his body is shaky. Fuck, even his _teeth_ hurt.

He’s breathing faster than ever, practically panting – and he’s disgusting and dripping with sweat, but at least he doesn’t need to puke. He doesn’t have breath to actually speak, although he somehow manages to throw his hands up to celly in triumph.

“Okay, Parson,” clipboard guy says, writing intently. “You’re done. Good job, kid.”

He scribbles something else down and lets Kent clamber off the bike. Kent staggers over to the wall, where Jack is waiting, and leaves heavily against it, breathing hard. He’s probably going to leave a nasty sweat stain on the paint. So what if his legs feel like jelly? That happens to everyone. And surely that was at least twelve minutes?

“Stamina, baby,” Kent crows when he’s finally got his breath back. “Did you watch?”

“Of course I watched,” Jack says.

Jack has already had his turn on the bike. He did puke, once he was done, into one of the many many convenient trash cans around the gym, but that isn’t counted as a black mark against him; more than seventy percent of prospects do. Now he’s leaning against a wall, hip cocked slightly, a towel slung around his shoulders as he watches their peers struggle and sweat against the gruelling marathon of endurance that is the VO2 max test.

Jack is a little grumpy, and stone cold sober too – they both are: there are far too many random urine tests over the duration of the combine to risk popping even the mildest of uppers. Still, Jack looks effortlessly good, even in his sweat-soaked t-shirt. His hair is long and wet-black, beginning to curl around his ears and at the nape of his neck. Kent tries to keep his admiration for the thick lines of his traps and delts low key, but it’s hard when he wants nothing more than to latch his mouth on to them and bite.

“Don’t,” Jack says, harsh and low. It’s quiet compared to the background buzz of the busy room, but it slams through Kent like a sucker punch to the gut.

“Sor- _ry_ ,” Kent gripes.

Jack’s grimace lessens a little. “Just,” he says stiltedly. “Not here, okay?”

It has been impossible to get a minute alone together for the entire three days, even in the hotel where the league has put them up. Then again, ever since they won the Memorial Cup, they’ve had nothing but time together, public and private. Kent has had more sex in the past three weeks than in the rest of his entire eighteen years.

“Later,” Kent says.

Incredibly, he musters up the energy to leer. Kent isn’t really sure what his face is doing, exactly, but he waggles his eyebrows a little more vigorously just in case.

Jack stares at him incredulously for half a second, before ducking his head and laughing. His cheeks dimple a little.

It makes Kent’s breath catch in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with the VO2 max test.

“Shut up, oh my god,” Jack says. He plants his palm squarely against Kent’s forehead and pushes him away.

“You love it, baby,” Kent says. “Also I literally didn’t say anything.”

“Your face was–” Jack gestures vaguely, “Doing a thing. I don’t know.”

That’s possible. Kent has a tendency to lose control of his stupid expressions whenever Jack does something particularly gross or charming, or, alarmingly, both at the same time. The only consolation is that Jack does the same in reverse.

Jack shoves a little harder, and then, stealthily enough that Kent doesn’t feel him coming, he grabs Kent and wrestles him into a headlock.

“Ah fuck off you big lug,” Kent says.

He’s grinning though, wide enough to hurt. Jack is solid behind him. Gone is any hint of the puppy fat that Jack had had when they first met; now he’s just a tower of golden skin encasing strong muscle. His big forearm wrapped around Kent’s neck is all that Kent can see – the way the veins lie beneath Jack’s summer tan, the dusting of dark hair, the bunched muscles that are the main reason his faceoff stats were the best in the entire Q this playoffs.

“Don’t call me baby,” Jack mutters into Kent’s ear.

“You love it,” Kent repeats, a little breathless.

It’s a good thing the other prospects already know they’re really fucking weird about each other.

“Group Six,” a stern woman in a skirt suit shouts, cutting through the blanket of sound, making them suddenly self-conscious so they jump apart. “Group Six – that’s Bailey, Beaulieu, Hughes, Lapointe, MacKinley, Martin, Miller, Nelson, Parson and Zimmermann. You’re done for the day. Bus for the hotel leaves in half an hour. Take the time to cool off, then meet in the lobby.”

“Want to get out of here?” Jack asks quietly.

Kent kinda wants to stick around to find out how he did, but there are scary admin people with clipboards who glare at anyone standing around not doing anything, they are technically on a schedule here, and, _fuck,_ Jack is actually offering here. That doesn’t happen often: usually Kent initiates their hook-ups.

“Fuck yes,” Kent says.

He grabs a gatorade out of an ice box and takes a swig. His lungs are still burning.

“Where are we going?” he asks when he’s finished drinking.

Jack is smiling that faint fond smile that seems to be his default expression when he forgets to do something else with his face. Or, at least, it is when he’s around Kent. Kent has seen him around his dad, or with Team Canada, or when he thinks he’s alone, and then his face turns into this tight-lipped, impenetrable thing that makes Kent’s heart hurt to look at. He much prefers the smile.

“There’s an empty trainer’s room down the hall,” Jack says with a shrug.

“So long as the door locks,” Kent says.

The one time they’d been stupid enough to make out in a room with a door that didn’t lock, they were nearly caught by their entire coaching staff at Rimouski, in the immediate aftermath of winning the Memorial Cup. That was as close a shave as either of them is willing to risk – their NHL careers are on the line if they ever get caught – and it took Kent nearly a week to convince Jack to start anything in any even semi-public place, even then with extreme reluctance on Jack’s part.

“It does," Jack says. Sheepishly, he adds, "I double-checked."

Jack heads off out of the gym and down the bland, sweaty corridor, and Kent follows without question. It could be any gym, anywhere in the world. They pass a guy in a tracksuit, not affiliated with the NHL, who nods at them, one stranger to another, as he goes by. Kent realises dumbly that he has no idea who either of them are.

The anonymity, after weeks of headlines, puff pieces and articles hyping up their supposed rivalry, is blissful.

“Here.”

Empty office. Kent takes all of a single glance at the room, before dragging Jack flush against his body – hips, chests and mouths crushing together all at once. The towel falls off Jack’s shoulders and slumps to the floor, forgotten.

“Did I ever tell you how horny working out makes me?” he says, between fumbled kisses.

“I guessed,” Jack says dryly. “About two years ago.”

Kent rolls his eyes and grins up at him. Jack smiles back down, all white teeth and movie star good looks, sweat-damp hair drying in curls at the edges of his face.

The height difference used to piss Kent off. It was just another of those things people liked to use against him – _oh, Parson will never make it to the NHL, he’s far too small –_ a reminder of all the ways that Jack is the model hockey player and Kent isn’t. He has come to appreciate it, however; the way he can tuck himself into Jack’s body and pretend that they were meant to fit together.

(Pretend that they haven’t got two weeks and counting before they’re pulled apart forever.)

Kent yanks his sweatpants down, a silent invitation for Jack to have at it, then pushes at the waist of Jack’s shorts. Jack is going commando, his dick fat and heavy – because Jack is lying if he says that working out doesn’t get him hard too – and Kent’s mouth waters. He licks his palm a couple of times and gets his hand on it. Jack does the same after a heartbeat’s hesitation, his grip rough and slightly too dry for the ideal handjob, but Kent isn’t going to complain.

“Come on, Zimms,” Kent says.

Their right hands twist around each other in well-practised co-ordination, so they can keep as close together as possible. Harsh breathing, getting harsher, mingles in the mere inches between their mouths.

Jack interrupts him after only a minute, however, to shove his shorts down all the way to where they pool around his ankles.

“I’m not walking to the bus with my pants full of come, man,” Jack says. “I don’t trust your aim.”

“Fuck off, that was one time,” Kent objects, but he concedes the point. He quickly does the same, and hurries back to the important part, getting his hand back on Jack’s dick.

Jack’s hand on Kent’s dick always feels huge. Kent hears a lot about his flashy stickhandling and his good hands, but he’s always thought Jack’s skill goes underestimated. He has wider palms than Kent does, squarer, with longer fingers that feel incredible when they’re opening Kent up, or, like they are now, wrapped in a firm grip around Kent’s dick, jerking him off in sure, unhurried motion. Kent tries to match his pace on Jack’s dick, revelling in the heat and the heft of it in his fist.

Kent’s face is mashed into Jack’s collarbone. The neckline of Jack’s t-shirt is disgustingly sweaty, and Kent breathes it in deeply.

“Are you _smelling_ me?” Jack asks. He sounds almost unaffected by Kent’s incredible handjob skills, until Kent rubs his thumb deliberately across the head of his cock, shifting the foreskin purposefully, and his breath hitches. “What the fuck, Kent?”

“You smell disgusting,” Kent replies happily. “Seriously, bro, you _reek_.”

“You’re not exactly a bouquet either, bro,” Jack retorts. “Anyway, that’s weird. You’re weird. Shut up and get me off, we have to be on the bus in fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, yeah, stop whining,” Kent says. He ups the pace anyway, and Jack reciprocates.

That is enough to render them non-verbal for a few minutes. Their fists bump a couple of times as their rhythms get in and out of sync, hips stuttering as they race each other to the edge. Jack’s cock is deep red in Kent’s grip, the foreskin fully retracted to reveal the head. Kent wishes he had time to get his mouth on it. Instead he runs his thumb across the slit, pushing at the slick pre-come.

“Come on, man,” Kent says again.

He pumps his hand a few more times, trying to wring the orgasm out of him. Jack drops his head to Kent’s shoulder, eyes clenching shut. Kent can feel Jack’s eyelashes against his collarbone.

“ _Crisse_ , fuck,” Jack says through gritted teeth, “Fuck, fuck, _Kenny_.”

He comes with his forehead pressed against Kent’s neck, grip slackening on Kent’s cock. His knees tremble, and the weight he’s leaning on Kent becomes suddenly heavier as he struggles to hold himself up. Kent does his best to keep the mess of come confined to his hand – the last thing either of them wants is any incriminating stains.

They haven’t got long though, before people will start looking for them, before they’ll be missed.

“Zimms,” Kent says impatiently, “Hurry it up.”

Jack gets all of twenty seconds of post-coital bliss before Kent knocks Jack’s hand off his dick and takes control of getting himself off. Jack doesn’t lift his head from Kent’s shoulder; instead, he shifts a little until he can just watch Kent’s fist flying on his dick.

“I’m gonna miss you,” Jack mumbles.

Kent pretends not to hear him. With his free hand, he grips Jack’s hips hard enough to hurt, digging his nails in a little where they’ll be covered when he pulls his shorts back up. His other hand is covered in Jack’s come, already becoming tacky, and he’s rubbing it all over his dick, mingling it with his own pre-come as he reaches the edge.

Orgasm is dizzying but brief, hot sparks behind his eyes and more come filling his hand, mouth dropping open to breathe wetly into Jack’s hair. He can distantly hear himself grunting unattractively, as well as a murmur of encouragement from Jack that he can’t understand right now.

He gives himself longer than he gave Jack to recover, which he thinks is fair, given he did most of the work. Then, brusque and business-like once he’s come down, he untangles himself from Jack’s grip.

“Stamina, baby,” Kent says breathlessly. “They shoulda been recording. Number one ranking is all mine.”

Jack has shaken away his bleariness, and his legs are steady again.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Jack says dryly. In his Captain voice, he adds, “Good one, man.”

He pulls up his shorts and smacks Kent on the ass. It’s nothing he doesn’t do all the time on the ice, but Kent’s ass is bare and his sweatpants are around his ankles, which does change the dynamic somewhat.

“Shut up,” Kent says, rolling his eyes.

He reaches down to pull up his own pants with the less sticky hand. His right hand is frankly disgusting.

“Do you have…?” he starts to ask, but Jack scoops the towel off the floor and thrusts it at him.

“Use this,” Jack says. “Just toss it, after.”

“We’re outta here anyway,” Kent says, wiping down his come-covered hand. “No one is gonna know.”

He throws the towel into the trash can with perfect accuracy from ten feet away.

“Exactly,” Jack says, grinning. With a hand on the small of his back, he pushes Kent out of the room. "Come on, man, we have a bus to catch."

Kent grins back. He’s two weeks away from the most important day of his life, and he’s making Jack smile at him – and have sex with him – on the regular: Kent is pretty sure that means he’s winning.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Arcade Fire, because O Canada.


End file.
